The powertrain continues to be a major contributor to the expense of today's electrified vehicles. The batteries and motors associated with electrified powertrains increase costs significantly compared to conventional internal combustion powertrains. Also, electrified powertrains typically have many trade-offs when it comes to efficiency. Optimizing an electrified vehicle for increased efficiency at highway speeds results in lower efficiency for low speed driving. Vehicles optimized for low speeds do not perform well on the highway. As such, there remains a need for electrified powertrains that can be adapted to their operating conditions.
Further, a multi-modal transportation systems may include a vehicle used for a first portion of a journey and an electrically assisted bicycle for a second portion of the journey. For example, a user may transport the electrically assisted bicycle in the vehicle such that, after the first portion of the journey is completed in the vehicle, the electrically assisted bicycle may be removed from the vehicle and used for the second portion of the journey. However, transport of the electrically assisted bicycle in the vehicle may cause packaging constraints within the vehicle, in particular with relatively small vehicles. As such, there remains an opportunity for decreasing packaging constraints associated with multi-modal transportation systems.